The recent Google spin-off Niantic Labs is cooking up what might be the first worthwhile Pokémon experience on a mobile device with Pokémon GO. A bit of footage was shown off at SXSW last weekend, but now Niantic has posted some proper details and screenshots. Get your Pokéballs ready.

Niantic's earlier games and apps are based heavily on your physical location, and Pokémon GO will apparently be no different. You'll have to venture out into the world to find and capture Pokémon. As you explore the world, your phone will push a notification if there's a wild Pokémon nearby, allowing you to try and capture it. Some wild Pokémon will also only show up in their native habitats too. For example, water types might only be found near bodies of water.

The more you play, the higher your trainer level will become, eventually leading to more powerful Pokémon appearing. You can also evolve some Pokémon and collect Pokémon eggs from PokéStops (in real world locations like public art installations, historical markers, museums and monuments) that will eventually hatch.

The gym system will apparently feel a little like Ingress. Three different teams will be available to join. If your team sets up shop in a gym (again, in a real world location), each player can station a Pokémon there to defend it. To capture a gym, your team must defeat the defenders in battle. An early test of the game is starting in Japan soon, but hopefully we'll all get to be Pokémon trainers before long.

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Bru [971]

Fights! We want to see pokemon fights IRL!

si3ge

if its anything like ingress fights its just a lot of shouting and passive aggresive snips

Yes, it'll be scary, but it'll be easier as long as we are with our Pokémon!

cmbeid

I forgot, I can set mock locations via Developer Options.

Jokerzwyld

Yea, that got squashed in Ingress ( from the same developers ) and I am almost 100% that it will be squashed from the start with this game.

Eli Staroverov

What about fake GPS apps for those with root?

moew

Squashed in ingress

YaKillaCJ

Hmm. Wonder how so. Because it's as if the device itself is somewhere else. Im talking changing location submitted by gps and data. Aren't those the only possible things the device can read the location from?

Release it before summer man we don't want to be going out into the snow hunting pokemon!!!!!!

Konstantinos Pap

Now go play Pokémon ΩR/αS.

NoBullet

It looks bland. Looks like a fan made project.

Datguy23

You ran out of pokeball, buy now for only 2.99$.

Slowpoke

I will hate this.

Abz Productions

im guessing they will do this.

Mike Hussion

Ingress doesn't, and seeing the similarities between the two it wouldn't really seem plausible for Pokemon GO to do this either.

marcusmarcus2

Except they are working with Nintendo now, so Nintendo will probably have them to use IAPs.

Jeffrey Linton

Actually Ingress does have the option to purchase Key safes and other items.

JG

Hmm... Not really into Pokemon... But I am enjoying playing Ingress... Might give it a try... Give me something to do while I'm standing by the fountain in the park waiting for it to cool down to be hacked again...

Nikhil Anilkumar

And which powerbank do I need?

Droidweb

For better or worse it looks like Mobile Assisted LARPing. It'll be interesting to see how many people play and for how long

fredric

The shut-in in me is in agony.

Kenneth Porter

"first worthwhile Pokémon experience on a mobile device with Pokémon GO" I understand what you mean when you wrote this sentence but the Nintendo DS and gamboys are mobile devices lol

JD

Will I need a bike and Fishing pole?

BAM1789

Gotta find a bike voucher first.

Mgamerz

Fork over 1000000 dollars.

Tomasz Kuczynski

Someone should start a service where they drive a car around with a VPN and you can VPN to their car. You can message them to stop. Will allow anyone to play this from their home.

pfmiller

That's not how location services works.

Marco Simonelli

You can do the same without a VPN, it's easier than you think ;-)

Badouken

I'm not the biggest fan of Pokemon or Ingress but hell I'll give it a shot!

Marco Simonelli

It will have short life if the anticheating system is going to be the same used into Ingress :v

Mike Hussion

Not really. There stands to reason that there will be a much bigger majority of players who will play this more casually than Ingress, as well as players who are not in the standard demographic of people who would GPS mod/hack/etc.

Overall of course it's going to happen, but it would be expected that the saturation would be much lower. Ingress was targeted (at least, initially) towards people who would be much more likely to mod their devices in one way or another.

Plus, don't know how long ago you played but non-root GPS spoofing doesn't really work anymore.

Marco Simonelli

I play Ingress for more than 3 years and I used to do this on stock locked non-rooted devices to don't give my smurfs any chance to accuse me of spoofed actions. I play in an area (central Italy) where spoofing is a daily nuisance and Niantic doesn't give a fuck on this until you make such a big noise you can heard from the moon.

The real question is not about how far you can go modding your devices to spoof on a location-based game, via non-root/root methods, FakeGPS and similar apps, xposed or whatever you can do on Android or iOS, but why is possibile to play Ingress via a computer shell?! That is the real cheat of this game and it's the symbol of the total failure of the Niantic's efforts againts cheaters.

I'm not going to play PKGO because I don't like Pokémon but I hope Niantic improved anticheats countermeasures for this new game, but I doubt.

YaKillaCJ

Thing is it's technically impossible to stop. They can only get physical location data from the physical instruments that submit the location data. Only thing that gives away our location are GPS and Data, which can be altered 1 way or another.

I wonder what kinds of pokemon are native to the subways of NYC... Rattata perhaps?

Anu6is

Rattata, Muk, Grimer, etc...

Eumelanin Knight

Koffing, Weezing.....Gastly... O_O

Eumelanin Knight

I'm probably too excited for this. I just hope an xposed module is created quickly to bypass root detection. You know it's going to have it lol

Martin S. Marotta

ingress doesn t have it, don t see why this should

Eumelanin Knight

Nintendo is why it will. Pokémon Shuffle, Pokémon Jukebox and Miitomo all had root detection in the app. With the last two not working at all unless root is hidden from them.

Mike Hussion

I feel like it sort of depends on who is actually releasing the app. If it goes under Niantic's moniker, there's less of a chance. That being said, of all games that would have (and actually *warrant*) root detection, this would probably be the one. :(

Diego Opazo SV-Cross

I'd like to be able to train them on my pokemon sun and moon.

Slowpoke

Pokémon Sun and Moon gets me more hyped than this.

Vratislav Jindra

I just hope they won't abandon Ingress.

Brandon Watkins

This is going to be legit! lol Going to be riding my motorcycle everywhere...gas is stupid otherwise!

ConCal

As much as I'd feel so nerdy playing a Pokemon game, this looks really cool.

Tell me why Alphabet would spin it off when this project was clearly in the work when Niantic was split from the company. The first TRUE Pokemon mobile game? You got nothing better than this as your platform's FIRST first party game.

f

What the fuck is a Pokémon?

Rowell

wew... let's get it start... i can't wait!!!

pseudo

Looks like more fun than ingress. WIth the battle system, if it's basically like the console games, I could enjoy it more. Nothing happens in Aberdeen on Ingress.

Sadface Malone

Ingress is unplayable if you don't live downtown. It took me months to hit level 3 before I gave up.

I'm terrified I will only be able to capture an army of pidgeys that I will never be able to level up.